Always a Body to Trade: A Mario Balzic Mystery (Penguin Crime Fiction)

Rating:
Summary: Chief Balzic educates the new mayor on the nature of crime
Review: At the start of "Always a Body to Change," the sixth Mario Balzic mystery by K. C. Constantine, we learn that the police chief of Rocksburg has to deal with a new mayor, Kenny Strohn. A political unknown who had defeated four-term incumbent Angelo Bellotti, Strohn is a simplifying self-righteous neophyte who cannot believe his police chief can be so complacent about the dozen burglaries that happen each day or the need to call a press conference at 8 a.m. when a young woman is found dead on the street with her face blown away. The victim has no identification, but the murder has all of the markings of a "message" rather than a random act of violence. One of the main subplots of this novel is the education of Mayor Strohn, who learns more about the way the law works in the real world than he every wanted to know. But the main point of the story is to solve this murder case and the great irony is that Chief Balzic is in for something of an education as well.

This is a disturbing book in many ways and I take into account that clearly it is Constantine's intent to provoke a response from both his characters and his readers. There was a point reading this book when Balzic is told of something horrible that a cop has done and I literally had to put down the book and walk away from it for a while. Not so much because this was one of the worst atrocities I have ever come across, in fiction or history, but because it was rather unexpected. However, I have to admit this did a marvelous job of creating a strong sense of identification between the reader and the main character as Balzic says and does what we ourselves would probably say and do under those circumstances. Still, the fictional Western Pennsylvania town of Rocksburg seems a much different place to me as I read this book.

This is not to say that the world of crime in Rocksburg has been anything approaching the relative clean environment of the Agatha Christie type "polite mystery," but rather than Balzic has not wallowed in it as much as he does in this book. The Balzic mysteries are always built around a series of conversations between the chief and various people, which bring him closer and closer to solving the crime. Often these are casual conversations that made lead to more serious ones down the road. But this time around there are direct interrogations of suspects, delicate negotiations with a local crime boss, and repeated efforts to education the mayor on the ways of the world. There are unpleasant topics talked about in the most unpleasant terms. Equally important to the uneasiness "Always A Body to Trade" provokes is that Balzic's family and friends have receded into the background. Balzic keeps saying he is a family man, but I think the only time his girls talk to him in this book is to tell him the pesky mayor has called again. Maybe this sense of isolation from his loved ones is why Balzic has been stomping through these last couple of novels in such a foul mood. Add to this the dirty and filth he has to wallow in with this particular case and no wonder he seems more unpleasant than he was when we first met him. For this character to lose his humanity would be a fatal error.